Halo: Under Honor
by Sorge
Summary: A marooned pilot and an alien castaway face a long journey into darkness together. When all that matters is the air you breathe, old prejudice falls away and survival favors only those willing to do whatever it takes to keep on breathing.
1. Chapter 1

**0230, August 13, 2552, Erandus System**

Warrant Officer Third-Class Keith Lockman woke up cold. Colder than he'd ever been before. Tiny motes of frost danced in the air, blown by his shallow breath. A slowly whirling starfield gradually came into focus, filling his field of view. His breath caught in his lungs as he fought back a wave of vertigo. His very bones felt frozen.

"Computer," he croaked, "reset the life-support module."

There was a quiet musical tone followed by a muted hiss as as vents beneath the console opened. His ears popped as the cabin pressure readjusted. The air grew warmer. He gasped as his flight suit slackened its hydrostatic stranglehold on his torso, unlocking from high-g configuration. Breath came more easily and he took it in in great thirsty gulps.

"Life-support online," a hushed female voice told him.

Lockman sat shivering uncontrollably, getting used to the feeling of being alive. It was a while before he could do anything more than lie trembling in the dark. It was still deathly cold, and his back felt strange, like something was out-of-place on the inside. There was blood on the inside of his visor.

"Status report," he ordered, reaching out to grasp the Longsword's control yoke. Strands of information scrolled along the few remaining displays that weren't dimmed or cracked.

"Longsword hull integrity at ninety-eight percent. Reactor offline. Reserve power at thirty-percent. All munitions expended," the computer said, and then paused, almost pensively. "Heading unknown."

"Position relative to _Miriam_?"

"Unknown."

Lockman groaned and sat up. The computer ought to be able to handle at least an estimation of their position based on the Longsword's rate of drift and trajectory, but the console merely displayed a flashing _'No Data'_ error message.

"Compare current position to starchart," he ordered.

"Analyzing."

The fighter pilot stared grimly out the viewscreen. His Longsword was in a slow spin, dead in space. But he was not alone. Against the cold light of the stars, the dark fuselage of another Longsword fighter drifted into view, scored with plasma and ruptured to space. The tail number was unreadable, but he would have known the pilot. He wondered if they had died quickly. Among pilots, rumor had it that plasma impact would ignite the atmosphere inside a Longsword, instantly immolating the crew in a vicious flash-fire.

The Covenant battlegroup had come upon the _Miriam _so suddenly, in the dead hours of the third watch and with many crewmembers in cryo, that his understrength 286th fighter squadron had been forced to scramble with only a few of its Longswords fully crewed, some in their skivvies, and in his case, just the pilot. Outmatched and outnumbered by the more durable Covenant fighters, they'd fared poorly.

By dodging through a meteor cloud, Lockman had perhaps survived the longest, watching the others drop off his IFF one by one as he darted and dodged with white knuckles on the yoke. He'd fired his last three ASGM-10 missiles at the Covenant carrier, watching them burn out their rocket motors and go wild kilometers from the target. He didn't remember anything after that.

Had he passed out? His head swam. Hypoxia? He checked the oxygen levels and found them breathable—but low. The Longsword was clearly losing atmosphere.

"Starcharts analyzed," the computer spoke. A ten-digit string of numerical coordinates flashed onscreen. Lockman blinked. He knew these coordinates by sight—most Naval aviators did.

"You're malfunctioning, chip-brain," he grumbled. "That's _Earth._"

"Analyzing," the computer said nonchalantly. "Navigation database corrupted. Database must be recompiled."

"Stand by," the pilot grunted. "Shut down to conserve power."

The console dimmed and Lockman shifted nervously. Conserving power was one thing, but there was something else bothering him. The chrono showed two hours since _Miriam _had made contact with the Covenant battlegroup. Space battles were usually over in half that.

There was no traffic on the battlenet, except for the automated distress beacons of a few Longsword fighters. It didn't mean anything, he knew—just a radio beacon automatically ejected on rapid decompression—unfortunately often just a marker for the recovery detail to find. The Covenant didn't leave survivors.

_Except me, _he thought, _I'm alive._

And he intended to do everything in his power to stay that way. Though never confirmed, rumor held that the Covenant had some means of homing in on unshielded transmissions. Lockman would take no chances. He'd keep all sensors dark until he had a better grasp of the situation. Paranoid, maybe, but what if the Covenant was still out there?

He allowed himself to consider the possibility. While it was theoretically possible that reinforcements might have arrived in time to turn the battle, the _Miriam _was only a frigate, and against a Covenant carrier and her two cruiser escorts, he had to admit that the odds were long. His Longsword was the carrier-based variety and did not carry its own Shaw-Fujikawa slipspace drive. He had rations enough for days... but the low oxygen readings worried him.

"Computer, confirm hull integrity," he ordered again, squinting at a virtual representation of the ship on the center console.

"Hull integrity scans at ninety-seven percent with a fluctuation of .03 percent per unit," the computer informed him in its feminine monotone.

"Show me," Lockman ordered. He rotated the three-dimensional image with a flick of his finger.

A color-coded representation of the hull sprang up, showing the hull chromatically as a patchwork quilt of light-colored superstructure and darker armor plating. The whole model pulsed with tiny warning symbols signifying compromised hull integrity. Lockman grimaced. It might have been a mistake on the sensors' part, but with the apparent loss of atmosphere, he could hardly it for granted.

He hesitated a moment, unwilling to leave the cockpit with so many unknowns. But the feeling of control he felt from the pilot's chair was only illusory. If the Covenant found him drifting here without weapons or power, it wouldn't matter a lick.

Setting the proximity scanners to warn of any approaching craft, he unbuckled himself from the command chair and floated aft, using the handholds placed at regular intervals to access the Longsword's cramped engineering compartment. Cracking a chemlight between his teeth, he stooped to get at the deck panel. The panel came away easily and he set it aside. Doubtfully, he let the chemlight fall into the dark compartment.

What he saw was disheartening. Atmosphere hissed through hundreds of patches of self-sealing foam, each as large around as his thumb—what he recognized as micro-meteor impacts. The computer had claimed hull integrity of ninety-seven percent, but the damage was likely far more extensive. The computer was probably not calibrated to scan for such miniscule breaches, reading them as solid bulkhead.

The reality set in. The hull was probably pocked all over with thousands of tiny holes, far more than he could seal even with the aid of a vacuum suit, which he didn't have. With a lurch, he realized that he was on a dying ship. The air was going to run out, and probably very soon.

He made a quick calculation and generously estimated that about forty minutes of breathable oxygen remained in the ship. After that, he would have to seal his suit and switch to a respirator, buying perhaps twenty minutes more. It would make his work clumsy and slow, but his lungs were not rated to breathe vacuum. An hour to live—maybe.

He became uncomfortably aware of the dull groaning of metal stress from the Longsword's hull. It was clear that she would not last long in this state. If even one portion of the now-porous bulkhead were to give way, explosive decompression would follow and almost certainly kill him. His pressure suit was only rated out to six minutes of vacuum exposure. If the air ran out first, he would die. If the Covenant found him, he would die. There were not many options.

With a roll of pilot's aluminized 'speed tape', he made an effort at patching the worst of the damage, though he knew the effort was borne of futility. The air felt thin in his lungs and he compensated with occasional breaths from his satchel-worn oxygen tank. He only needed to survive long enough for the UNSC to show up, as he told himself they surely would. At best possible speed, a cruiser dispatched from the inner colonies might arrive on station in just under twelve hours—far too long to hope for. A ship from Reach might have arrived sooner, but there was no Reach anymore, was there? The covies had glassed that too. He'd have to help himself.

Fortunately, the damage to the reactor was more easily repaired than the perforated hull. Heat from his high-speed maneuvers had taken the reactor critical. The galvanizing coil was completely slagged and many of the unshielded components had simply melted. Everything combustible had burned, and leftover heat still radiated from the compartment. Lockman noted with some trepidation that all four of the automated fire-suppression nozzles had melted away in the brief inferno, though there was no smell of fire in the compartment. It had probably been sucked into space before the self-sealing nanomachines in the hull could counter.

Though there was no machine shop aboard, he'd have to have a go at fixing it because the alternative was a slow death by asphyxiation. So he rolled up his sleeves and got to work, sweating at the thought of Covenant fighters silently gliding in to put the Longsword fighter in their crosshairs. He'd be dead before he knew what hit him—a comforting thought.

_Ignore me, _he willed, _I'm junk—just ignore me until I can fight back, dammit._

The reactor safeties had to be reset manually, and he did so, one by one, following a rigorous step-by-step checklist on his 'pad. He worked methodically, cutting away sections of damaged bulkhead with an acetylene torch. The rigid adherence to detail focused his mind and he momentarily forgot his fears.

It was the only thing to do. It was all he _could _do. If the Covenant found him drifting here, without power, they'd fry him at their leisure. On the other hand, there might just be another UNSC vessel out there, derelict but perhaps with functioning life support or salvageable recharge cartridges for his respirator, but he didn't fancy a spacewalk to search the neighborhood for spare parts. Everything hinged on bringing the reactor back online.

The computer's whispering voice cut through his thoughts.

"Caution, Covenant vessel approaching."

Fear blossomed in his gut. He kicked off the bulkhead, bounding into the cockpit with urgency. The viewscreen showed nothing, but as he peered through it, anxiously scanning the stars for movement, he saw it—a flicker of blue against the black backdrop of space.

"Lights off," he ordered, his mouth dry. "Shut everything down."

The cabin lights flickered obediently, and the console went dark. The Longsword drifted dead in space once more. He held his breath as a Covenant Phantom drifted into view, its running lights glowing cool purple. Were they fellow stragglers, or hunting for survivors?

"Have they seen us?" Covenant scanners were better than their own, but the Longsword was equipped with refractive sensor-defeating stealth coating, and he hoped he might get lost amidst the wreckage. He crossed his fingers.

"Dropship is actively scanning," the computer reported in the same flat monotone.

"Computer, confirm status of munitions," Lockman whispered, wondering if the Covenant might pick up on his words or the rapid beating of his heart. He was a Navy pilot, accustomed to flying high-adrenaline, high-risk operations, but this was different. He was not a contender—he was the helpless prey. He sat gripping the edge of his seat.

"No missiles remaining. All cannon rounds depleted."

He cursed. The sortie had been so rapid that he'd been forced to deploy without adequate armament. The phantom's gun would shred him. His grip on the seat became white.

"Standby to fire chemical thrusters," he ordered hoarsely. His only hope was rapid evasion. He only had enough fuel for a few quick burns—could the battered fighter even withstand the force of sudden acceleration?

Through the viewscreen, the phantom's ventral plasma cannon swivelled in the Longsword's direction and began to glow, cycling through the color spectrum from dark purple to electric blue.

"Warning, spike in gamma radiation detected. Covenant dropship has detected us."

_Shit. _That was that. He punched up a string of rapid maneuvers and waited to meet God. He wondered what it felt like to die.

But instead of opening fire, the dropship drifted closer, angling to draw alongside his damaged fighter. A tiny docking collar emerged proboscis-like from the left pylon, quivering as it sought out his Longsword. Their intent was all too clear.

"Oh shit, they 're going to board us!"

_Was this worse?_ He flipped on the rescue beacon and opened a channel on the UNSC band. "Mayday, mayday, this is Longsword Bravo-two-seven-niner requesting _immediate _assistance from any UNSC personnel. I am being boarded by a Covenant vessel." His voice was so matter-of-fact that it surprised him. The fear was gone, repressed to a dull ache in his temples and replaced with a cool rush of clarity as his training took over.

He thought he might have heard a garbled codeword in the static that followed, but there was no response to his further queries, and he didn't have time to play radio-tag with some automated out-of-the-way UNSC monitoring station with a Covenant dropship closing on his Longsword.

He spun in his seat, jabbing his finger at the control console. "Computer, initiate the Cole Protocol, right now!"

Before he could take any other action, he had to make double-sure that the navigation database had been purged and deleted as mandated by the Cole Protocol, a UNSC-wide directive to all personnel to destroy any navigation data that might lead the Covenant to Earth or the inner colonies. And of course, there was a second step...

"Ready the self-destruct sequence," he heard himself say. "Standby to initiate."

And he'd so wanted to _live..._ But it wasn't over yet. He'd make the Covenant work for their prize. As the dropship drew up alongside, he keyed in a new heading.

"Computer, standby for course correction on bearing two-zero-two-zero," he ordered. "Full burn."

There was a thump as the Covenant vessel nudged into his Longsword. With a clang that reverberated through the entire vessel, its docking collar found purchase, activating powerful electromagnets. The smell of cordite flooded the cockpit and the temperature grew noticeably warmer.

"Course correction! _Now!"_

He was tossed back like a ragdoll as the Longsword jetted forward with explosive force. He rocketed away from the Phantom, shearing the docking tube away in a shower of sparks and plasma. The airlock broke away cleanly, and he had the satisfaction of observing several alien figures flung out into space. The Longsword shuddered violently, but held together. With no counter-thrust to slow it, the fighter craft hurtled toward the edge of the system at incredible speed. For a second he imagined that he might outrun the Covenant.

The Longsword slammed to a stop. Unrestrained, he flew forward into the windshield, shattering his nose on impact. Blood spurted everywhere in the microgravity as purple light illuminated the cockpit and made his skin tingle. Another Covenant dropship had angled in from above and was using its gravity lift as a kind of retainer to bring him to a standstill.

He slammed his fist on the console and keyed up another random trajectory, using the last of his fuel. But before he could order the maneuver, the other dropship sidled up to take position in front of him, its plasma cannon glowing ominously in unspoken threat. They were taking no chances—blocking him in as they fired their gravity projectors in tandem, holding his Longsword in their vice-like grip.

The troop bay swung open and figures in midnight-purple vacuum suits swarmed out, streaming toward his helpless Longsword with plasma cutters in hand. He caught a glimpse of a scaly maw open in a roar of challenge as the alien floated toward him. _Jackals. _His stomach turned as a cold rush of fear flooded in. For sheer ruthlessness and cunning, the avian creatures had no equal in the Covenant. To be taken alive by Jackals was a fate unimaginable. One landed bug-like on the windshield and stared at him inquisitively with its reptilian eyes. Lockman hit it with a stream of sudsy cleaning solvent and the glass rattled with its answering scream.

He quickly polarized the windshield and kicked out of his chair. He was already flouting the rules by not self-destructing when faced with the very real probability of capture, but he'd already purged the nav database, and something inside of him refused to just lie down and die. A framed image of vintage actor Tom Cruise as a Naval Aviator smiled roguishly down on him, as though approving of the decision.

Fumbling with the weapons locker, he grabbed the M7A3 aircrew fighting weapon from the rubber shackles that held it in place. A stockless, cut-down SMG designed to prolong the life of stranded airmen shot down behind enemy lines, it was compact enough to fit in a pistol holster and fired special subsonic ammunition that wouldn't penetrate a spaceship hull. He also had his sidearm, a stainless-steel M6C magnum that he'd never fired apart from training. Should he take weapon in each hand like a Spartan commando, mow the invaders down, firing from the hip with a knife between his teeth? There were weapons enough for each member of the crew, but they were useless to him unless he cared to take a spacewalk and rocket his way back to the inner colonies.

He glanced around the darkened interior of the Longsword, wondering what he might use for cover. Would the command chair stop a plasma bolt? His flight suit offered only the most minimal protection for his chest and groin. In the end, he settled for an open locker and shut himself in, pistol pointed outward.

_Go away, _he thought, sweating profusely in the cramped darkness. _Nobody's home... _In truth, he was terrified. As a pilot, he'd encountered so many near-death situations that he'd long thought himself callous to mortal fears, but this was fear of a personal kind. Aliens were coming to kill him, and they _would _kill him, unless he could kill them first.


	2. Chapter 2

**0340, August 13, 2552, Erandus System**

Rez hissed, flaring his elongated crown of quills in warning. Ordinarily this would have been enough to quiet his insubordinate crew, but there was a blood frenzy in them. They squabbled and snapped at each other, eager to pillage the human ship and spill the blood of its crew.

"Soon! Soon, you miserable dogs! Shut up!" he cursed them, aiming a vicious blow at the nearest Kig-Yar's head.

Outside the crimson-lit docking tube, other members of the _Time of Harvest's _crew in vacuum suits swarmed over the hull of the derelict human fighter, guiding the flexible conduit by hand. More stood by with plasma grenades, ready to breach the hull of the angular ship should it attempt a second escape. They'd learned their lesson the first time and had lost an entire boarding party. It had been a clever trick, but it would not work again. The _Harvest's _other dropship barred the way.

"Captain!" It was the Unggoy Deacon, a snivelling, spineless little creature whose superfluous manner was superseded only by its slab-jawed corpulence on the list of things Rez hated about it.

He made a show of deference to the little gnome, knowing it to be the Prophet's spy, though the contempt was evident in his voice.

"Yes, Deacon? What word of divinity do you bring us today? Does our piety lapse?" He mockingly drew a claw across his chest in a gesture of faith.

"I bring word from the Holy Prophets," the Unggoy huffed. "You are commanded to capture a human alive if possible, and return with it to the Holy City."

Rez bared his teeth and hissed in the Unggoy's face, spattering the Deacon with saliva. It wiped the spittle from its breath-mask with a scaly forearm and stared back fearlessly with its dull little eyes. It was all Rez could do not to draw his crystalline dagger and drive it into the creature's belly.

"What are you saying, Unggoy?" he demanded, seizing the small creature buy the front of its tunic. "Do you think to give _me _commands?"

"No, Captain," the Deacon said quickly, lapsing into the broken speech common to Unggoy, "Me only relaying divine word of the Holy Ones!" It unconsciously mirrored the same gesture that the Kig-Yar had modeled, no doubt in complete sincerity, though Rez occasionally wondered if the creature might not understand more than it let on.

He snarled and flung Deacon away. In truth, a live human was a prize in itself, a veritable treasure trove of information, but his plans had not involved the long-term survival of any crew. But the Prophets wanted one brought back _alive. _Why? Disgusting, faithless creatures. Their very existence was an affront to the gods.

He told himself that it didn't matter. The Prophets in their infinite wisdom acted in ways that surpassed his understanding. He mentally castigated himself for his lapse in faith. Whatever the case, he doubted that their motives toward the human scum were at all altruistic. No doubt the human would find death a mercy compared to whatever plan the Holy Ones had concocted for him.

"Captain," a Kig-Yar mercenary hissed, "A seal has been made."

"Excellent," Rez growled, motioning his subordinates forward to begin cutting through the human airlock. "Begin!"

Harsh blue light filled the corridor as crewmen with plasma cutters began to burn through the airlock cover. Another pair armed with pry-bars moved up and wedged them into the gap, straining with their sinewy forearms to widen it. With a groan, the door slid open and a rush of air whipped past them into the darkened human ship.

Rez flinched and instinctively crouched back, anticipating the slap of gunfire. None came. Just the sigh of air as pressure between the two vessels equalized.

"Forward!" he hissed, waving his glowing scimitar. "Take them!"

It was all the encouragement his shipmates needed and they surged forward into the human ship. Rez drew his own plasma pistol and motioned to the Unggoy Deacon to stay behind him, not out of any concern for its safety, but to ensure that the Prophets received a report that their instructions had been duly carried out.

From the airlock aft, it was a straight shot down the narrow corridor to the cockpit, but locked compartments and shadowy crawlspaces abounded. At each hatch and intersection, Rez expected to be met with a sudden volley of human gunfire, but none came. The cockpit hatch proved a difficult obstacle. It could not be opened with the provided handle, and Rez suspected an ambush.

He thought it likely that the humans were inside, perhaps armed. A cowardly act, and a most irritating one. The hatch was a total bottleneck, half as tall as a human and hardly more accessible to a Kig-Yar. They'd have to proceed through one at a time, and the humans would surely have their weapons trained on the hatch.

Rez cautiously put his ear to the heavy door, listening for movement. How many humans did it take to fly such a ship? How many would be armed?

He looked around at his small boarding party, and quickly calculated that a direct assault on the cockpit would be costly. Better that he should call for the Kig-Yar beyond the hull to cut through the bulkhead and asphyxiate any inside. But the Prophets wanted a human alive_. _The decompression might kill them.

Rez growled in frustration. If he might recall the crew of the second Phantom to join with his, they might have the numbers to take the cockpit, but he was sure that some of his own would be lost, and they were down several Kig-Yar crewman already. The Shipmaster would not be pleased.

"Open the door!" he howled, beating on the stubborn hatch with the butt of his plasma pistol.

The Unggoy shuffled nervously forward with his hands folded in consternation.

"Perhaps you should try a more reasonable approach, Captain," he offered carefully.

Rez rounded on him with the light of fury blazing in his eyes.

"What did you say, _Deacon_?"

"Well," the Unggoy continued, his voice wavering, "perhaps the humans might surrender themselves voluntarily if you gave them the chance. As it is written; _mercy in measure may do for violence uncurbed..._ "

It was too much. Rez fell on him with a scream, striking him savagely in the side of the head. The rest of the Kig-Yar bristled, crowding in uncertainly as he continued to beat the helpless Unggoy until it slumped the the floor in a growing pool of its fluorescent blood. It lay motionless, unconscious or dead.

He rose, breathless and flushed from the exertion. His crew stared uncertainly, the threat of humans forgotten. The Unggoy Deacon lay unmoving at his feet. The realization of what he had just done hit him and his mouth went dry. If the Ministry found that he had killed a Deacon in cold blood, he might be heavily fined, or worse, removed from his command.

He quickly thought of how he might turn this situation to his advantage.

"The Deacon was killed when the human rammed us! His body was lost, but we, in good faith carried out the Prophet's instructions and chose to recover a live human of our own volition. And in the absence of a Deacon to instruct us, we made best possible speed back to High Charity for instruction where we shall offload the human prisoner and there reap the rewards due us as we enjoy many days of easy living!"

The other Kig-Yar murmured contentedly amongst themselves and nodded approvingly.

"The ship logs shall reflect this," he ordered. "The Deacon's last wish shall be granted. Now, to the spoils!"

He sidled up to the hatch and cleared his throat, spitting wetly on the tile.

"Humans!" he screeched in a fair approximation of their language. "Humans! You are boarded and surrounded by our ships! The Prophets extend to you their offer of forgiveness! Put down your guns and come out, and you shall feel their mercy!"

He listened. His Kig-Yar contingent shifted uncertainly. They too felt his apprehension about storming the cockpit, and were in no hurry to die.

"Humans!" Rez tried again, "Surrender and you will live!"

If he could get even one human to surrender of its own volition, there would at least be one less inside to offer resistance. He could suck the air from the cockpit then. It would be a great pleasure to see their faces, eyes wide and bulging as they died.

But the human crew remained stubbornly silent. Rez began to wonder if they had not happened across a derelict ship, abandoned or with crew dead, running on automated systems. The humans were said to possess blasphemous artificial beings. Rez cursed the lack of a portable life-scanner on their scavenger ship, a rudimentary piece of technology denied them by the Elites, curse them. Even the Brutes—

"Hello?" a shaky human voice called. Rez's head snapped up, eyes darting. It was difficult to pin down the direction of the voice, and he realized that it was coming over the ship's intercom system. He found a likely panel and after a moment's study, pressed the button marked 'transmit'.

"Humans!" he screeched, "Give up now or you will all die! Come out and you will live"

"Live?" The human sounded panicky and shaken. "How do we know you're telling the truth? How do we know you won't kill us?"

"Human!" Rez snarled, his patience almost expended. "If you do not open this door, we will—" He glanced at the dead Deacon. "As servants of the most Holy Prophets, we offer our word! How many are you?"

The human paused a moment, and when it came back its voice sounded a touch more confident.

"Six, all armed. I'm warning you, if you try to enter, we will destroy this ship and everyone aboard."

Some of the Kig-Yar with him looked alarmed. Rez roared his fury.

"Human! Look around you! You are surrounded by my ships and you are dead in space! The only reason you are not dead already is because I have ordered it so! Do you understand me? _I hold your lives in my hand!_"

There was silence for a long moment and Rez wondered if he'd overplayed his hand. He could not return empty-handed from this venture or the Prophets would surely see through his sham. He motioned the rest to make ready to enter the compartment. But the human voice returned.

"Hey, listen, man, I don't want to die today. If I come out, do I have your word you won't kill me?"

Rez spat in contempt. Humans were so pathetically easy to manipulate that it was hardly even a challenge.

"You have my word," he promised. "Come out now and you will live."

"Okay, I'm coming out. Please, don't shoot!"

Rez gestured at his crewmates to hold their fire as they trained their weapons on the door. To his surprise, the noise of a hatch swinging open came from behind, and he whirled, weapon raised. A human stood there, hands raised in surrender with a look of pure terror plain on its face.

"Don't shoot!" the human cried, "Please, don't shoot!"

"Stop!" Rez screamed, jabbing with his plasma pistol. "Sit down on the ground!"

But the human stumbled as he approached, half in a daze and white with fear, pointing with a shaking hand toward the cockpit door. Its other hand was obscured in the folds of its uniform.

"Let me... They'll listen to me, they'll surrender! I can make them surrender!"

"No!" Rez screeched, grabbing a handful of the human's rough fabric flight suit. "You will not—"

The human turned, and Rez saw the stubby black barrel of a firearm protruding from its sleeve too late to do more than raise his plasma pistol with a squawk of alarm. A conical gout of fire leaped from the weapon's muzzle and filled the compartment with deafening thunder that quickly turned into a hurricane-force gale as a weakened portion of bulkhead gave way under the fusillade and blew out to space.

Five of his Kig-Yar were instantly swept off their feet, beaks open in surprise as they and everything that wasn't welded down blasted out through the widening gap. The Longsword spun wildly, tearing away from the attached phantom and hurling the vacuum-suited boarders helplessly into space.

Rez dug his talons into the floor, screeching in terror as an impossibly strong forced clutched at him, drawing him hand-over-hand toward the two-meter wide hole through which air explosively vented. He glanced around desperately and spotted the human clipping itself to the bulkhead by a short length of rope, wrestling to wriggle into the cockpit against the torrent of air.

"Wait! Come back!" Rez tried to scream, but found it impossible to draw breath. Choking and snarling, he made an attempt to reach the bulkhead, but the pull of the void was too strong. With a screech like metal rending, his claws drove a line of grooves into the floor. The Unggoy Deacon had revived, and it squealed and grabbed at him as it swept past, sending them both hurtling toward the breach. It clutched at him and he shoved it away, driving his needle cutlass into its back to send it flailing away into space where its methane tank exploded in a brief flash like a firecracker.

But by good fortune or providence, the Kig-Yar Captain's web harness snagged on some protrusion only meters from the brink, leaving him snapping wildly against the bulkhead like a flag buffeted by stiff wind. There was no time to ponder the ignominy of his predicament, and he clawed madly at the steel partition to find purchase for his claws. A cross-brace loomed above him and he reached for it, hooking it with the tip of his talon just as the harness broke free and slipped from his shoulders. Shuddering with the effort, he pulled himself hand-over-hand along its width toward the cockpit door that now seemed to be above him.

The human's boot was just disappearing through the hatch and his hand snaked out to grab it, digging in with his claws and eliciting a cry of outrage from above. An armored boot smashed down on his hand, but he clung all the tighter, scrabbling catlike to haul himself through the hatch. A gunshot snapped past and sparked off the bulkhead, sounding strangely hollow in the thinning atmosphere.

The Kig-Yar's vision blurred at the edges, but still he hung on, intent on survival by any means. There would be breathable oxygen in the cockpit. He would survive, and he would kill this human. His rage gave him strength and he reached up again.

Clawing and struggling with all his might, he managed to heave his torso over the lip, losing his grip on the human in the process. Vacuum sucked at him as he clawed upward, inch by inch. The human crouched over him, masked and gloved, cursing his jammed weapon. But Rez found himself completely unable to crawl any further, on the verge of blacking out half through the hatch.

The human shouted at him in strange, unintelligible vowels, kicking at his arms and face. Unable to shield himself with his hands lest he be ripped away by the vacuum, Rez growled weakly, fighting to stay conscious. The human could not close the hatch while he occupied it, they would die together. It was not an honorable death for a Kig-Yar, but it was acceptable for a Covenant warrior to fall in battle alongside a foe. He would doubtlessly go along on the Great Journey when the time came.

As Rez lapsed into unconsciousness, he was not expecting to feel a sudden tug on his forearm as he was lifted bodily upward. Strangely, he felt no pain as he landed, though his arm bent awkwardly beneath him. A dull ringing echoed through the compartment as the hatch slammed shut, and immediately the pressure on his lungs eased.

He struggled to his hands and knees, glancing around for anything to use as a weapon, but the human was upon him again in seconds. A boot lashed out and struck him in the ribs, driving what little breath he had from his lungs. With a bellow, the human pilot picked him up like a ragdoll and slammed him forcefully against the wall, sending a debilitating stab of pain through his broken wrist. He snarled and tried to break free of its grasp, but the human proved stronger.

The blows rained down savagely, and it was all Rez could do to curl himself into a ball and shield himself with his forearms. Spatters of purple blood drifted in the microgravity and unconsciousness beckoned him once more. The human's hands closed around his long neck and squeezed, trying to choke the life from him.

A mask of fury contorted his face. To die like this, at the hands of a human was unacceptable. He raked at his assailant's chest with his claws but found only a tough plastic plate. His field of vision shrank to a pinhole as blackness came roaring in.

"You will die—human," he choked. "My ship—my ship will—destroy..."

The hands on his throat slackened ever so slightly and Rez drew a great rattling breath, tongue lolling out as he fought to suck oxygen into his tortured lungs. Caught off guard, he stumbled along meekly as the human pressed him roughly against the center console, twisting his arm behind his back.

"You want to live?" the human barked. "That's a radio! Call your ship and tell them to back off!"

"They will not!" Rez growled furiously. "They will destroy you!"

The human ground his avian skull painfully against the console.

"Well you'd better convince them, or I'll kill you myself!"

Rez worked his tongue a moment and spat a long dribble of bloody saliva from the corner of his mouth.

The human screwed the barrel of a pistol painfully against his temple. "Make the call!"

"Heretic! Human filth! You will die!" the Kig-Yar snarled.

Out the window, an ungainly vessel appeared, seemingly cobbled together of spare parts and plates of purple metal. Motes of light flickered along its length as its plasma projectors charged and prepared to fire. Rez forced a smile and stared up unblinking into the human's visor. The _Harvest's _guns would take them both.

But the end never came. A bright flash erupted from the side of the Kig-Yar Corvette and for a moment Rez thought that the vessel had fired, but as secondary explosions ripped their way through the _Time of Harvest's _superstructure, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. He watched in stunned disbelief as the _Harvest _trembled and blew apart in a miniature supernova of plasma and fire as her reactor went critical.

_Impossible... _His head swam. Blackness beckoned and he welcomed it. He went limp and meekly surrendered to unconsciousness, aided on his way by a hearty bludgeoning from the human's pistol.


End file.
